Contrary to popular belief, the costs of creating an e-book and a hardcover edition are similar. About 10 percent of hardcover costs go to printing, binding and shipping. Publishers set a retail price for an e-book, and selling agents such as Amazon.com and Apple receive a flat percentage of that retail price. These estimates are based on sales of 75,000. Expenses for a book include one-time costs such as editing and marketing. Many e-books lose money for publishers; e-books that sell millions of copies offset losses from less popular books. – Andrew Schneider
COST TO PUBLISHER $9.09
Author royalties $2.27
Editing/digitizing 0.28
Marketing1.00
Overhead 3.18
Operating profit 2.36
COST TO RETAILER $3.90
Overhead .50
Digital rights management .10
Pre-tax operating profit 3.30
Price to consumer $12.99
Washington Post Saturday, February 5, 2011
From here.
